Cleareye.ai, which makes financial technology for banks, is working with Microsoft to power certain products, starting with its PPP Loan Forgiveness Processing Engine, driven by artificial intelligence and powered by Microsoft Azure.
The engine is a document automation and rules reconciliation solution and is designed for lenders who process forgiveness applications as part of the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, which provides direct incentives to small businesses to keep workers on the payroll during the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than $525 billion was disbursed during the first round of the PPP last year. Having to process applications within 60 days, banks saw processing bottlenecks due to the sheer number of loans and the intricacies of document verification. The SBA also banned the use of robotic process automation to submit loan applications to equalize access, but this further hampered the efficiency of banks in processing application volumes.
Cleareye.ai’s engine is designed to reduce the risk and cost associated with processing, increase production and improve accuracy. The system uses natural language processing, machine comprehension, computer vision, machine learning and configurable rules to process forgiveness applications, while integrating with existing loan-processing systems.
The engine from Cleareye.ai also uses computer vision, part of Azure Cognitive Services, the Azure Kubernetes Service and other computing and analytical services from Microsoft.
One feature of this partnership is text extraction to streamline the loan application process.
“Microsoft’s cloud-based computer interface significantly streamlines our document understanding process to extract printed and handwritten text,” Chandrasekhar Somasekhar, chief architect at Cleareye.ai, said in a statement. “Cognitive service containers are a game-changer for us. They give us the flexibility to bring our data close to where it gets processed for compliance, security or other operational reasons.”
With Microsoft as its technology collaborator, Cleareye.ai will begin rolling out an array of products.
“We’re pleased for this new collaboration with Cleareye.ai, which allows Microsoft Azure to serve as a backbone to Cleareye.ai’s AI-powered processing engine,” said David Koscheski, director of U.S. financial services for Microsoft, in a statement. “We believe the combination of the technologies will have a significant impact for lenders while responding to growing demand.”